


What Dark Deeds

by penscritch



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: F/M, High Fantasy AU, elf!Holly, necromancer!Artemis, ranger captain!Holly, saving the world wherever they are in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3919963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penscritch/pseuds/penscritch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artemis and Holly discuss love and its repercussions. Set in a high fantasy AU where Artemis is a master necromancer and Holly is still that crazy girly captain, except she’s also an elf ranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Dark Deeds

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this one A/H fanfiction I read a long time ago and can’t find again. It was a fantasy setting featuring necromancer!Artemis, so this is my tribute to that fic. More of my personal headcanon regarding this AU in the End Notes.

“There are stories about your kind, you know,” Holly propped her head in her hands, legs swinging idly as she watched him brew his potions and make notes on parchment scattered on his worktable. “That in mastering death, you master life. That master necromancers never die.”

“Hardly,” Artemis said derisively, carefully pouring three drops into the steaming beaker before corking the bottle and setting it aside. He dipped a glass stirring rod into the misty froth, moving counter-clockwise thrice and thrice again. At last he set aside the rod with faint sigh as wisps settled heavily in the beaker, almost solid. “I can name scores of so-called ‘masters’ who have died ignobly throughout the centuries. We are as mortal as any of the other races, for all that we live longer lives because of our magic.”

She made a noncommittal noise, and grinned mischievously. “I don’t know, some of those stories are pretty romantic. Grand gestures on the behalf of a lady love. Reviving her beyond the grave and keeping her with him, killing Death, and so on.”

He frowned, as much puzzled by the unexpected state of his latest experiment, which began to glow ominously green, as much as by her sudden fixation on morbid fairytales. “You should know better, I hope. I am never so dramatic and many of those ‘gestures’ as you call them are impossible.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Airily, she tilted her head up to ceiling, “’I am the Master of Death,’” she intoned mockingly, “’None shall deny me and live. Remember the name of Artemis Fowl the Second!’ And you did summon that army of skeletons. Wasn’t King Ca—King Something Starting with a C the only one who managed that? Everyone said _that_ was impossible too.”

Scowling, he plonked a bottle of ingredients down hard. “That was the King of Colchis, and merely a forgotten technique. Much of that knowledge has been lost to time. I merely rediscovered it.”

“Mmhmm. And what about that story about the guy who lost his wife and brought her back?”

Artemis glared, his hands a frenzy of motion as the mixture began to reach a critical point. No mistakes to be made now, especially with the smokeweed to be added. One wrong move would be… explosive. “Orpheus’s tale is a cautionary one. It is impossible to truly bring back the dead. Therefore he fails in his task – he journeys to the Afterlife and looks back. What he returned with was nothing more than a memory. A physical memory of the body, to be precise. The result had no personality, no soul.”

She shuddered delicately, a barely perceptible frisson of movement as she made a disgusted face.

“Yuck.”

“Precisely.”

Artemis peered closely at the misbehaving concoction. Though Holly could not see what changed, some sign obviously made itself known to Artemis. His eyes sharpened in that way he had of being pleased, alarming even to friends who knew he meant no harm. He labeled a clear bottle in his crisp, slanting script before transferring the contents of the beaker. The glass stopper dropped into the mouth of the flask.

Finished with his task, he turned his full attention towards Holly, surprised to find that she was quiet and her expression pensive, almost melancholy.

He made his way to the table where she perched on his table, silently placing a hand on her shoulder. She blinked, the veil disappearing as she smiled and shook her head slightly.

“Holly.”

She sighed. “I really can’t hide anything from you, can’t I?” she said ruefully. “I just started thinking –“

“Careful,” he said. “You might break something.”

She punched him.

Artemis rubbed his shoulder, scowling, but his heart wasn’t in it. It was worth it to see her mood lighten. Violence to his person somehow had that effect on her.

“Hahah, very funny. Anything else?”

She cracked her knuckles warningly.

He swept the slightest of bows. “Nothing. Pray continue.”

She squinted at him distrustfully, but continued. “I was thinking about death. We’re not exactly made for the quiet life, you know, and I can’t help thinking one of us is going to be left behind some day.”

There wasn’t anything Artemis could say to that. Their adventures were anything but safe and he had a necromancer’s unique insight into mortality.

“I – “ she began, then pushed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered. “I won’t – I can’t bear it.”

Artemis found his own hands shaking – when did that happen?

“Holly,” he tried.

“No. Just – no.”

“You think I feel any differently?” he said, and something in his voice made her hands drop from her face and her eyes widen.

“Oh, Artemis,” she said. She bit her lip and did her best to make her voice light. “Then I guess we’ll just both have to live very long lives and disappoint everyone who wishes differently.”

Both of them knew the end to that. One of them would be left behind, inevitably, even if by some miracle that were to happen.

“Holly,” he began, then stopped. A wrinkle formed between his brows as he struggled with his words. She kissed him there, a brief warm press of lips that smoothed the tension. Finally he said, “It would be much simpler if you don’t die before me.”

She snorted. “That’s not hard. I’m an elf and we live much longer than you mortals, even the mages. Not to mention that I’m a ranger. This crazy girly captain isn’t going down anytime soon.”

She grinned reassuringly, but his gaze was focused, intense. He slid a hand up her neck to her face, tilting her head up.

“Don’t leave me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes, softening it with a smile. “I’ll never leave you.”

Holly leaned into the pale, bone-white hand cupping her cheek and wondered if there was some truth to the old romantic tales, if he would find a way to bring her back if she died. Artemis was young, but easily the greatest necromancer the world would ever see. If anyone could do the impossible, he would.

She’d never guess, but his thoughts were along a similar line. Watching her dark eyelashes sweep along sweet nut-brown skin, her hair a glorious shifting red-gold like the heart of embers, Artemis wondered how much of his heart she had already stolen away and what dark deeds he would do to keep her.

**Author's Note:**

> Artemis is from a noble family that dabbles in necromancy (and other illegal things) behind the scenes and Holly is a ranger captain elf. The kidnapping still happens like in canon-verse, because everyone needs money. The fundamental difference in this multicultural mixing pot world is that dabbling with death is considered anathema for the elves, who value life. Artemis is kind of the hired consultant they wish they didn’t need – there are still issues around world-destroying dark magic users and artifacts, not to mention human-elf disputes, that make having him around pretty handy.
> 
> Also, I borrowed random elements of Greek/Roman myth. Just pretend they exist in this world and the people in them have slightly different professions and stories, okay?
> 
> (for the insanely curious, my headcanon is that there is a miraculous happy ending and both of them live for a _very_ long time and have grandkids who pester Foaly a lot. Eventually some last world-ending catastrophe comes and drags them out of retirement for one final showdown and they go down together in a blaze of glory. Neither one gets left behind.)


End file.
